


"Throw Cares Away"

by farad



Series: Christmas Carols [9]
Category: Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-22
Updated: 2012-12-22
Packaged: 2017-11-22 01:25:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/604289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/farad/pseuds/farad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>December 27, late afternoon</p>
            </blockquote>





	"Throw Cares Away"

**Author's Note:**

> Set the Christmas after "Obsession"; thanks to Huntersglenn and Dail for the wonderful Christmas Eve beta. Thanks also to Zeke Black and her awesome Magnificent Seven Handbook, with transcripts, pictures of the clothes the boys wore, and every thing else, and the people at Daybook for their quick answers to my specific detail needs! All mistakes my very own.

  
_**"Hark how the bells,** _   
_**sweet silver bells,** _   
_**all seem to say,** _   
_**throw cares away"** _   


– from "Carol of the Bells", verse one;  
the lyrics are by Peter Wilhousky, added to an original folk music from the Ukraine

"I ain't here for you," Buck announced, getting off his horse at the gate to the corral. "I ain't asking after you, I ain't asking you back to town, I ain't looking to argue with you." He loosened his horse's saddle but didn't take it off, then he opened the gate and sent the horse through, into the corral. As the big grey passed, Buck reached up and snagged his saddle bag, dropping it over his own shoulder.

Chris stood on the porch, one hand loose on his gun while the other rested against a beam. He counted off the days in his head and realized what day it was. Two days after Christmas Day.

In all the years he'd known Buck, this was the day Buck was always moodiest. Chris had put it down to Christmas being over. Buck did love the holiday, almost as much as a kid. Sara used to say – he stopped himself. He couldn't think on that right now, wouldn't.

But it was so hard not to when Buck was around. He shook his head, trying to clear away the memory of her.

"Ain't looking to make you feel bad, either," Buck said, his voice low and close. He was standing in front of Chris, his deep blue eyes framed by worry. It wasn't a look that was good on him, but one Chris had seen too much of these past nine months.

Chris blew out a breath. "If you ain't out here to check up on me, then why are you?"

Buck grinned and it almost reached his eyes. "Had a thought today, sort of puzzled something out that I been thinking around for a long time. Something my ma taught me, though I didn't know she had."

Chris waited, knowing that Buck couldn't keep it to himself, and sure enough, Buck's grin softened to a sad smile and he said, "Today's the day I want to spend with the people I love the most. Done seen JD and Ezra and Josiah and Nathan since Christmas Eve - "

"And AnnaMae and Delilah and MaryBeth and - "

"Oh hell, Chris, sure I've seen them," Buck said, but his tone was shorter, maybe a little irritated. It was a sound Chris wasn't used to, not when Buck was talking about women. "But I don't mean that kind of love. I mean . . . " He waved a hand around in the air, searching for words.

But Chris understood. "Ain't got much, some leftover raisin bread that Mary made, some of Ezra's good brandy," he said, turning toward the door. "Grab an armload of wood – this damned cold weather is eating up my reserve."

"Sounds like you done had visitors!" Buck said as he turned to get wood.  
The brandy was still on the table, as were the two brandy snifters Ezra had left 'for future use'. Chris got the remaining half of the raisin bread out of the cupboard and set it near the stove to warm, then he added more water to the coffee pot, to cut the strength of the brew that had been sitting since that morning.

Buck kicked the door open, his arms laden with wood, and made his way over to the corner beside the stove. The wood clattered as he dropped it into the wood bin, and several pieces thudded to the floor, rolling around. "Well now," Buck said, looking at the table, "you surely have had company! Ezra left these with you?" He picked up one of the snifters, holding it up to the light that was coming in the still-open door.

Chris walked over and closed the door, the temperature in the room rising immediately. "Seems this cabin is part of a road to damned near everywhere," he said, walking over to pick up the wood on the floor. When he got to the last one, he opened the stove door and put it in, taking a few seconds to make sure the wood caught and that the fire was doing all right.

"Yeah?" Buck said, putting his saddlebags on the bench at the table and pouring healthy measures of brandy into the snifters. "Ezra's been here – you said raisin bread. Mary been out?"

Chris sat down in a chair between the stove and the table. "Vin brought it by on his way out of town."

"I was hoping he'd be here," Buck said, sitting on the other side of the table and stretching his long legs out. "Guess I'll have to go looking for him later this afternoon."

Chris snorted. "You'd have better luck finding gold in the creek out there," he said. "If he don't want to be found, you won't find him."

Buck sighed. "Well, then, I guess you'll have to do."

Chris wanted to be annoyed by that, particularly when Buck launched into the tale about JD and Casey and the 'Boxing Day' breakfast, but Buck's particular version of it was just different enough to be amusing and to have Chris smiling by the end of it.

"Ezra's started a betting pool," Buck said, "on when they get married. I'm in for several dollars. You really should get into it."

Chris swallowed the last of his brandy – the last of the brandy – and shook his head. "Worries me, betting on them. These days, seems like everything I touch is turning to dust. If I were superstitious, I'd worry that I'd somehow mess things up for them, too."

Buck looked at him and opened his mouth – then he did something Chris had never seen him do before: he shut it without saying a word.

Chris frowned. "Something wrong?"

Buck shook his head and lifted the glass to his lips and drank – or tried to; like Chris', his was empty.

He put it on the table then reached for his saddlebags, taking out a bottle of whiskey. Not as good as the brandy, but not the rotgut that Chris usually drank.

"How 'bout some of this?" Buck said, breaking the wax seal and uncorking the bottle. "I ever tell you 'bout my ma?"

"Every chance you get," Chris answered, holding out his glass. The whiskey was the good enough to cover the retelling of the tales, even though, as with most of Buck's tales, there were enough variations from the first few times Chris had heard them that they were almost like new.

The raisin bread was still good, not as fresh as it had been when he'd shared it with Vin, but good enough to sit well in his stomach. He'd avoided it for the past several days, the smell of it bringing back memories of Sara and things he'd lost, but Buck's stories, the low, easy rumble of his voice, the humor in his tone, kept those memories at bay. It was strange not to feel the pain, stranger not to feel the need to think of Ella Gaines, to call back the anger that had become the center of his life.

"Days like today," Buck said as he finished off the last of the loaf, "I miss Ma something fierce. Gloria Potter said she knew my ma was dead 'cause if she weren't, I'd have been with her at Christmas – though more like, it'd have been today." He smiled at the thought. "Guess I understand why you - " He stopped then, his smile faltering, then he went on, "That Gloria is something else, I tell you. She and Mary truly outdid themselves with that feast – you should have seen it, Chris. I don't think Josiah could get through his prayer fast enough . . ."

The sun was low in the sky when Buck finished off his tale about his mother and the preacher from Boston and the reindeer horn. The whiskey bottle was only down about a third – no hard drinking, not with these stories.

"Guess I'd best be getting back to town, then," Buck said, putting his glass on the table and stretching. "Thanks for letting me ramble on. I appreciate it. Means a lot to me that you let me bend your ear on these stories I know you've heard before."

"Oh, I don't know," Chris said, opening the stove to put another log in. "Never seem to be the same, no matter how many times I hear 'em." He meant it to be teasing, but as he closed the door and looked over at Buck, he saw something deep and sad on the other man's face. "What?" he asked. "Ain't nothing wrong with that. Keeps 'em more entertaining."

Buck swallowed, opened his mouth to say something, then, once again, he closed it. Taking a deep breath, he pushed up and out of his chair, reaching for his saddlebags as he did.

"Buck?" Chris asked, wondering what he'd said to cause this strange . . . silence?

Buck drew in a deep breath, opened his mouth again, closed it, then choked out, "Good seeing you, Chris." He turned quick and headed for the door, pulled it open and was out of it by the time Chris was on his feet.

"Buck!" he called, now worried. "What's wrong?"

Buck was off the porch and moving fast across the yard, his long legs eating up the distance. Chris had to trot to catch up with him, calling Buck's name as he went. He reached out, finally catching the back of Buck's coat and jerking him to a stop. It wasn't easy; Buck was tall and weighed more than Chris and the ground was saturated from the recent rains so when he tried to dig his heels in, he ended up being dragged several feet before Buck finally stopped. Which he did so suddenly that Chris almost fell on his ass, saved only by the hold he had on Buck's coat and by Buck catching his elbow.

"Whoa, now," Buck said, steadying Chris.

"What's wrong with you?" Chris asked, irritated now that he'd had to resort to this.

Buck stared at him, and yet again opened his mouth then closed it. Chris glared as hard as he could, the anger building in his belly. The feeling was so familiar that it felt normal, the way things were supposed to be, the way things had become.

Buck wasn't angry, though. In fact, he wore an expression that Chris couldn't recall seeing before, one so sad that he lost sight of Buck himself.

Chris stepped back, letting go of Buck's coat and pulling free of Buck's grasp. "Buck?" he asked, and a new sensation flared through his belly. No, not new; he'd been feeling this for nine months now, since he'd run out of Ella Gaines' house to find his men trapped and being fired on by a band of men who he'd realized seconds before worked for her.

Fear. Fear for them, fear for something happening to them, fear that he was going to lose them and he couldn't stop it. Couldn't protect them.

Fear that right now, he had already lost Buck, though he didn't know why.

His breath caught as he looked at Buck, the sadness still there. Buck's mouth was working again, as if he were trying to say something but couldn't. Poison, she'd found a way to poison the bread or the whiskey and Buck couldn't tell him – or she'd somehow shot him, and Chris hadn't heard the gun, maybe a rifle like the one Vin had coveted, the assassin's rifle but with one of those things that dampened the sound of the bullet -

Then Buck straightened, the pain and sadness in his eyes fading. His mouth closed, his lips coming together and his jaw tightening, and he stepped forward, reaching out with one hand, his fingers catching in the front of Chris' shirt and pulling him forward, right at Buck, straight into – a kiss.

The contact was a surprise, so much so that for a time, Chris didn't move, not quite sure what was happening. Buck was warm against him, lean and hard, but his lips were soft, the contact pleasant.

Chris tried to think, to push away, but his own hands got tangled in Buck's jacket, and then in Buck's shirt and he tried to open his mouth to protest but it was filled with Buck's tongue, warm and sweet and safe . . .

'Not that kind of love' drifted through his mind, and he wondered what it meant now, if this, what they were doing, was the same 'not love' or something else.

Something that came with talking about Buck's mother, sharing the things they'd lived through, the things they'd both lost.

"Bed," Buck murmured, but it came out more like a question, so Chris nodded and they wound their way back toward the cabin, tripping up onto the porch and laughing into each other's mouths.

Laughing.

That was what Chris remembered the next morning as he drifted slowly into awareness. For a time, he wondered if it had been a dream, a good dream of the time before Sara, when he and Buck had nothing to lose and nothing was important except feeling good, any way they could.

But when he moved, he found that the warmth along his back wasn't a pillow or the wall, but the long body of his oldest friend, and the tightness around his waist was from an arm holding him close. Holding him together. Grounding him.

He stilled, thinking about the previous night, the easy pleasure of Buck's touch, the shocking intensity of their joining.

The gentle laughter.

"Too early to be thinking that hard," Buck said, his voice rough with sleep. His fingers moved along Chris' belly, slow and light.

"What happened yesterday?" Chris asked, using his hand to cover Buck's, to stop the movement. He didn't try to move away, though, or to move the arm around him.

"Think you're old enough to figure that out," Buck teased, but there was a note of worry just at the bottom of the words.

"No, not that," Chris said with a sigh. "Yesterday afternoon. When you wouldn't answer me. Why wouldn't you?"

Buck shifted, pressing closer to Chris, his mustache tickling the back of Chris' shoulder as he said, "Told you when I got here – it wasn't about you. I wasn't here to check on you, or tell you what to do, or anything like that. I was here for me, 'cause I needed to be with the people I love."

"Then why did you run out the door that way?" Chris asked. "What did I say?"

Buck sighed, rubbing his nose along the back of Chris' neck. "You didn't say anything. You – you – awh, hell, Chris. You smiled. You made that smart-ass comment about my stories never being the same, but when you said it, you looked like – you looked like the man I first met, happy and carefree and ready to take on the world. Made me think of JD, made me scared for what could happen to him. Made me . . . made me scared that I'd lost that part of you forever, that Ella Gaines has taken that away from me. From us, all of us who know you."

Chris thought about it then he gently squeezed Buck's hand under his. "Ain't none of us safe until she's in the ground – you boys less so than me. I can't rest until she's dead."

"Don't you think we know that?" Buck said, his fingers starting to move again, as if they had a mind of their own. "Don't you think we're all scared to damned death that you're gonna get yourself killed needlessly, going after her alone – or that one of us is going to get killed going after you because you're too damned pigheaded to let us help? To see that we're the ones really at risk and the least you can do is let us all do what we do best, working together to find that bitch?"

Chris thought about it – or tried to, but the hand on his belly was moving lower, drawing the blood slowly from his brain to his cock. Then it wasn't slow any more and for a time, there was no thinking to be done at all.

It was mid-day when Buck pulled on his boots and buckled on his gun belt. Chris sat at the table, watching his old while he sipped his third cup of coffee.

"You going to find Vin?" Chris asked.

Buck shook his head then ran his fingers through his thick waves before putting his hat on his head. "Like you said, he won't be found if he don't want company. Reckon he'll be back to town soon enough. Another storm coming and I can't believe he'd prefer to stay out in more ice and rain."

"If he's out in it," Chris said with a sigh. "He could be long gone, headed down to Mexico or up to California."

Buck picked up his saddlebags then stopped to look down at Chris. "You think that? Think he'd walk away?"

Chris looked down at his coffee mug. "Think he's thinking about it," he said quietly, remembering the look in Vin's eyes on Christmas Eve. The sadness and the doubt. The same things he'd seen in Buck's eyes yesterday.

The same thing he'd seen in Nathan's eyes on Christmas Day, and Ezra's the day before yesterday.

"We've all been thinking about it," Buck said slowly. "Don't mean we're gonna do it. Don't think any of us would walk away from you, not with her still out there. Would be nice, though, if you'd start trusting us to know what we're doing."

Chris drank more coffee but as he swallowed, he nodded. "I'll – think on it," he said, looking up at Buck.

Buck smiled, a big, happy smile. "You do that." As he started for the door, he asked, "You coming back soon?"

"Yeah," Chris answered, getting up to follow him out. "Just need a little time to think. Figure out what we can do."

Buck stepped off the porch and turned back, reaching out to drop a hand on Chris' shoulder. "I like the sound of that – 'what we can do'."

Then he leaned in close and brushed his lips across Chris'. "Come back soon," he said softly. "I want to make you laugh some more."

Chris smiled – naturally. With Buck, there was no other way to be.


End file.
